So dawn'd her youth:--Youth, Nature's holiday! Fair time, which dreams so gently steal away; When Life--dark volume, with its opening leaf Of Joy,--through fable dupes us into grief-- Tells of a golden Arcady;--and then Read on,--comes truth;--the Iron world of men! But from her life thy opening poet page Was torn!--Its record had no Golden Age. Behold her by the couch, on bended knees! There the wan mother--there the last disease! Dread to the poor the least suspense of health,-- Their hands their friends, their labour all their wealth: Let the wheel rest from toil a single sun, And all the humble clock-work is undone. The custom lost, the drain upon the hoard, The debt that sweeps the fragment from the board, How mark the hunger round thee, and be brave-- Foresee thy orphan, and not fear the grave? Lower and ever lower in the grade Of penury fell the mother and the maid, Till the grim close; when, as the midnight rain Drove to the pallet through the broken pane, The dying murmur'd: "Near,--thy hand,--more near! I am not what scorn deem'd,--yet not severe The doom which leaves me, in the hour of death, The right to bless thee with my parting breath-- These, worn till now, wear thou, his daughter. Live To see thy sire, and tell him--I forgive!" Cold the child thrills beneath the hands that press Her bended neck--slow slackens the caress-- Loud the roof rattles with the stormy gust; The grief is silent, and the love is dust; From the spent fuel God's bright spark is flown; And there the Motherless, and Death--alone! Then fell a happy darkness o'er the mind;-- That trance, that pause, the tempest leaves behind: Still, with a timid step, around she crept, And sigh'd, "She sleeps!" and smiled. Too well she slept! Dark strangers enter'd in the squalid cell; Rude hirelings placed the pauper in the shell; Harsh voices question'd of the name and age; Ev'n paupers live upon the parish page. She answers not, or sighs, and smiles, and keeps The same meek language:--"Hush! my mother sleeps." They thrust some scanty pence into her palm, And led her forth, scarce marv'ling at her calm; And bade her work, not beg--be good, and shun All bad companions--so their work was done, And the wreck left to drift amidst the roar Of the Great Ocean with the rocky shore. And thou hast found the shelter!--from thine eyes Melt the long shadows. Dawn is in the skies. Low on the earth, while Night endures,--unguess'd Hope folds the wing and slumbers on its nest; Let but a sunbeam to the world be given-- And hark--it singeth at the gates of Heaven! III.